The Underground Railroad eBook

The sufferings for food, which they were called upon
to endure, were beyond description. They happened
to have plenty of salt fat pork, and perhaps beans,
Indian meal and some potatoes for standing dishes;
the more delicate necessaries did not probably last
longer than the first or second week of their ice-bondage.

Without a doubt, one of these Captains left Norfolk
about the twentieth of January, but did not reach
Philadelphia till about the twentieth of March, having
been frozen up, of course, during the greater part
of that time. Men, women and children were alike
sharers in the common struggle for freedom—­were
alike an hungered, in prison, naked, and sick, but
it was a fearful thing in those days for even women
and children to whisper their sad lamentations in
the city of Philadelphia, except to those friendly
to the Underground Rail Road.

Doubtless, if these mothers, with their children and
partners in tribulation, could have been seen as they
arrived direct from the boats, many hearts would have
melted, and many tears would have found their way
down many cheeks. But at that time cotton was
acknowledged to be King—­the Fugitive Slave
Law was supreme, and the notorious decision of Judge
Taney, that “black men had no rights which white
men were bound to respect,” echoed the prejudices
of the masses too clearly to have made it safe to
reveal the fact of their arrival, or even the heart-rending
condition of these Fugitives.

Nevertheless, they were not turned away empty, though
at a peril they were fed, aided, and comforted, and
sent away well clothed. Indeed, so bountifully
were the women and children supplied, that as they
were being conveyed to the Camden and Amboy station,
they looked more like a pleasuring party than like
fugitives. Some of the good friends of the slave
sent clothing, and likewise cheered them with their
presence.

[Before the close of this volume, such friends and
sympathizers will be more particularly noticed in
an appropriate place.]

* * * *
*

SUNDRY ARRIVALS—­LATTER PART OF DECEMBER, 1855, AND BEGINNING OF
JANUARY, 1856.

Joseph Cornish was about forty years of age when he
escaped. The heavy bonds of Slavery made him
miserable. He was a man of much natural ability,
quite dark, well-made, and said that he had been “worked
very hard.” According to his statement,
he had been an “acceptable preacher in the African
Methodist Church,” and was also “respected
by the respectable white and colored people in his
neighborhood.” He would not have escaped
but for fear of being sold, as he had a wife and five
children to whom he was very much attached, but had
to leave them behind. Fortunately they were free.